Funniest Hungarian mistranslations in Friends

Friends, the iconic American sitcom was extremely popular worldwide when it first aired (and still is). It was no different in Hungary, people loved the show. Friends re-runs attract many viewers up to this day. In Hungary, Friends (and pretty much everything else) is dubbed. As we are humans after all, mistakes happen in translation. In the following list, few of the funniest Hungarian mistranslations are highlighted from the popular sitcom Friends.

Disclaimer: Translation is not easy. I do not intend to scorn the work of people who worked hard on the Hungarian dubbing, so that everyone could enjoy the show. But let’s face it, these are obvious mistranslations, and regardless of why they turned out the way they did, they are hilarious.

Mirror translations are dangerous

In season 1, episode 9, Ross is sad because his parents decided not to host a thanksgiving dinner that year. Monica (his sister) offers to host one for the group, and she tries to make everything like their mother does.

The English text goes like this:

• Monica: “OK, I tell you what: how about I cook dinner at my place. I’ll make it just like mom’s.”
• Ross: “Will you make the mashed potatoes with the lumps?”

Mashed potatoes have lumps when the mixture is not well-mixed, and small pieces of potatoes remain “unmashed” and make the mixture look like it has little lumps in it. Translators were probably not familiar with the term “lump”, so they looked it up in the dictionary and came up with this:

• Monica: “Na jólvan tudod mit? Ünnepelj nálam. Majd én főzöm a vacsorát, olyat, amilyet anyu szokott.”
• Ross: “Teszel nyúlhalat a krumplipürébe?” [Will you put lumpfish in the mashed potatoes?]

They decided to translate “lumps” as “nyúlhal” which is “lumpfish”, cyclopterus lumpus in Latin to be exact. In theory, lump could mean lumpfish, but why on Earth would that be in the mashed potatoes??

Tricky Homophones

A homophone is a word that has the same sound as another word but is spelled differently and has a different meaning. Probably this phenomenon lead to this second mistranslation that happened in season 5, episode 8. The group celebrates thanksgiving, and Joey is listing the things he is thankful for:

• Joey: “I am thankful for this beautiful fall we have been having. Yeah, the other day at the bus stop this lovely fall breeze came in out of nowhere and blew this chick’s skirt right up. Oh, which reminds me, I am also thankful for thongs.”

The last bit is what is important for us, that he is thankful for thongs, a type of women’s underwear. The Hungarian translation goes like this:

• Joey: “Hálás vagyok ezért a gyönyörű őszi időért. A múltkor is állok a buszmegállóban és az édes őszi szellő hirtelen felfújja egy csaj szoknyáját. Ó, ez eszembe jutatta, hogy hálás vagyok a nyelvemért.” [… Oh, that reminds me, I am thankful for my tongue.]